Following the surrender of Geronimo, Massai, the last Apache warrior is captured and scheduled for transportation to a Florida reservation. Instead, he manages to escape and heads for his homeland to win back his girl and settle down to grow crops. His pursuers have other ideas though.

Film Review

I grew up watching westerns so in turn love them dearly….they tie me in with a great childhood when things were simple and life was good in an unadulterated sense.Burt Lancaster has always been a prominent actor and his talent is so very showing in this movie. Charles Bronson is also in the movie and comes across very well as a young actor who is later destined to be one of the greatest actors of our time. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie on a lazy Saturday afternoon and I highly recommend it for its soothing effects of a simple yesteryear long gone except in cinema. It is a typical plot of indians being pushed out and destroyed by the Union Army with one stand out rebel…..hell bent with an anger created thru intense hate, yet capable of showing love towards the woman in his life.

There may be some criticism as to Lancaster and Peters with blue eyes and classic American features portraying Indians, but this was a box office hit in its day and is still worth watching today. This was the first movie that allowed audiences to see the world through the eyes of an Apache and that merits consideration when you select to see this film. It opened the road for other movies focused through the Indian's point of view, which are still being made today (and that includes Gibson's Apocalipto). Both Lancaster and his beautiful squaw, Jean Peters, give excellent performances, despite their blue eyes; which is another reason to watch this flick. It is very well done and the Indians come out as dignified people thanks to good acting. These two actors are definitely pros. They actually manage to act natural with difficult, though smart, dialog that was written to enhance the way Apaches talked at the end of the 19th Century. The screenplay is very interesting and based on…

Following Geronimo's surrender, Massai is the last Apache warrior who refuses to bow down to the white man. Escaping from a prison train, he returns to his homeland in New Mexico, attacks the local fort and escapes into the hills with Nalinle, the squaw who loves him. But tribeless, homeless and pursued, how long can he survive ?This is one of those rare fifties westerns which tries, within the traditions of the genre, to portray American Indian culture with accuracy and sympathy (see also Sam Fuller's Run Of The Arrow), and was the first of three great westerns made by Aldrich, Lancaster and producer Harold Hecht (the others being Vera Cruz and Ulzana's Raid). It has three fine performances; blue-eyed Lancaster is physically dazzling as the uncompromising Massai, who is noble, cruel, tireless in his quest for freedom, and tortured by the defeat of his people. Peters, little-known now but a major star in her day (and Mrs Howard Hughes), is terrific as the woman who underst…